Trying something a bit new, I have made a short video Dev Log to demonstrate where the game is currently. (The answer is still pre-alpha with tons of bugs). It shows some ship-building gameplay with an inkling of the ship-fighting gameplay. See below for the video.

If you want to see more, please sign up for my mailing list or subscribe on YouTube. I hope to produce videos like this every month or so (depending on real life commitments and visually interesting progress).

Mustang Warship is a ship-building, ship-managing and ship-fighting video game set during an alternate history version of the age of dreadnoughts. It is a hobby game I work on when I have spare time after my ‘real’ job.

Ship-Building: I want the player to be able to build and modify the ship that they are playing on. Currently this is based on a quasi-voxel grid (for now on a 12m wide, 115m long and 5 layer tall ‘grid’). The layers are actually 2 meters tall to be able to fit a pawn in each quasi-voxel. Players are able to place walls and floors to make the hull of the ship and then place down machines to add functionality to the ship (such as boilers, engines and guns). Right now all building is free, but I want to eventually make it so that the player needs to earn resources before they can build and have some changes require being in port or a dry dock.

Ship-Managing: I plan to have multiple resources that the ship will need to operate. Some like fuel, food and water will need to be purchased (or extracted) where as some like steam, bilge and torque, will need to be generated, managed and consumed within the ship. I want managing of the crew to also be an important part of the game, as balancing morale, training and work times, hiring new recruits verses salty veterans, and getting to know the quirks and abilities of your crew to all be part of the fun. I have added a simple crew-management portion to a previous prototype of the game, so I think I can manage to re-add.

Ship-Fighting: I want to eventually have complex ship-to-ship combat mechanics. My intent is that the aiming will be automatic by the crew members, but type of turrets (longer barrels for distance vs short barrels for tracking of quick close targets), the type of shells (AP, HE, Frag, ect), the ships involved (armor, speed, distance) and the weather will create a dynamic battlefield in which positioning is important tactically and your ship design is important strategically.

The Age of Dreadnoughts: I hope to have technology that would be feasible in the range of 1910 to 1930. This is a world in which a different version of the Washington Naval Treaty, one that left a loophole in which mercenary fleets could acquire and operate warships, resulting in proxy mercenary wars between signatories who didn’t want to risk their navy ships. I’m hoping this will allow me to use WWI and interwar designs that never made it to the water, allow me to avoid some of the cultural issues with certain flags, and explain some of the “gamisms” (changing your ship design from the fleet standard, having to purchase your own equipment, ect).

What this game will not be: I have a very low amount of time that I can work on the game, so I’m trying to keep a reasonable scale. I am aiming for solely single player, offline friendly. I will not have 3D HD graphics or perfectly modeled ships. It might well take me years in order to release even the very basic working version. I’m not a great programmer, game dev or anything, so please be patient with me and my little passion project of a game.

If you’re interested in this game, please sign up here (link not yet added) for more details once I get closer to having something playable.